Week two in Italy and it has been such a wonderful week! I have been going on awesome excursions this week and learning so much. I am getting my master’s in Child Life and thankfully we have had amazing opportunities this week to work with children in Italy. Starting with going to school and facilitating medical play, visiting an old asylum for the mentally ill, touring a children’s hospital, and…
As an International Studies and Spanish double major at the College of Charleston (2016-2020), I was eager to try study abroad from the moment I arrived on campus. Beginning my Freshman year, I studied abroad in Peru for a Spring Break Excursion to study food sustainability in the Andes Mountains and to China to explore Chinese Identity in Music for a Maymester. It was truly astounding how much I learned…
Sophia Stoios is a senior honors student at the College majoring in Political Science and International Studies with a European Concentration and minoring in Economics. She studied abroad in Spring 2019 with our exchange program at the University of Tartu, in Estonia. After coming back from Tartu, Sophia joined the CIE team as one of our peer advisors for three semesters. She is currently interning with the non-profit, Ibu Foundation, that helps to…
As a junior during my time at The College, I studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa for my Spring semester through an Affiliate program provider, Interstudy (now CIEE). I took classes at the University of Cape Town and lived with other students on my program from various U.S. institutions in shared apartments just off-campus. My program included a handful of local excursions to allow me and my peers to…
Studying abroad has been very influential in my post-grad life. It inspired me to do a gap year of travel which was amazing and helped me grow as a person. Then, I was hired as an iCharleston Site Director in Rome, a job where previous study abroad experience is a requirement. It is extremely important that you have experienced studying and living in another country so you can guide and…
During my sophomore year I studied abroad at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland through an exchange program. Many of my courses at Queen’s dealt with Irish history and culture, and I spent a fair amount of time traveling around Belfast and the surrounding region for class and for fun. This, along with a very fascinating unit on 20th century Irish women in one of my classes, piqued my interest.…
While a junior at the College of Charleston I studied abroad with Semester at Sea, a multi-destination program that’s comparative nature was perfect for my studies in Sociology and Political Science. Having been abroad just once before this, I could never have imagined how immersing myself in so many cultures would change my perspectives both academically and personally. While traveling through Asia and Africa, I had unique opportunities to interact…
My study abroad experience at Kansai Gaidai University had a huge influence on my professional life. I came to College of Charleston with the goal of becoming an ESL/EFL teacher in Japan. College of Charleston’s amazing Japanese studies program and study abroad opportunities were very attractive to me. Before studying abroad on CofC’s program with Kansai Gaidai University, I took 3-4 semesters of Japanese to prepare. Kansai Gaidai is a great…
I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the fall of 2018 with Academic Programs International. It was a terrific experience – I made great friends, my Spanish progressed significantly, and I learned more than I could have ever imagined about Argentina, its culture, and its politics. While studying at Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, I took a class on Peronism (a form of populism specific to Argentina),…
As a product designer, my goal is to design solutions that are effective and impactful for all users. Many of these users, often coming from very different backgrounds than I — different cultures, countries, etc. Being able to immerse myself in various cultures and countries during my semester abroad has helped tremendously to humanize the user in my mind when designing any kind of solution in my career. During my…
